Stoke Court

Stoke Court is an Elizabethan style mansion built in 1845 and 1873. It features stucco over brick with stone details and plain tile roofs, along with modern Tudor style clustered brick stacks. The building is two storeys with an attic, and the stucco is lined to resemble ashlar.

The main front has a central projecting three-storey porch with a three-light mullion and transom attic window, an armorial plaque at the first floor, and a ground floor doorcase with an arched doorway flanked by attached columns and a cornice above. There are two gabled half dormers on either side. The main floors have mullion and transom windows, with three-light and two-light windows to the left of the porch, and two-light, single light, and three-light windows to the right.

The main garden front is also stuccoed and features two large flat-topped three-sided bays, one two storeys high and the other three storeys, both of equal height. Between the bays is a three-window centre with first floor windows rising into dormer gables. There is one window range beyond each bay, also with dormer gables. The windows have mullions and transoms with small panes, all of which have been renewed.

To the right of the entrance front is a 19th-century ashlar extension with a tall three-sided bay window, a gable adjoining over a two-window range, and a further two-window range beyond, all featuring mullion and transom windows. A modern addition extends beyond this section.

The house was gutted by fire in 1979 and was rebuilt within the original shell. It is located on the site of West End Cottage, where Thomas Gray's mother and aunt lived, and where Gray wrote parts of 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard' and 'Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College' between 1742 and 1750.